Six weeks into working with Charlie and coping with the mental anguish the General was stirring up … and Terry had just about reached a breaking point. He was overtired, overworked, overwrought. His body and mind were twisted and aching. Something had to give.

A man like Terry Thorne, trained to withstand anything, wasn’t likely to give himself the luxury of a simple nervous breakdown. He wouldn’t permit tears or even unreasonable anger. He was in the control of the iron fist that ruled his life. Ah … but his health was not in his command. Not at all.

He lay shivering beneath a blanket on his sofa, pummeled with fever and body aches he couldn’t blame on Charlie. The flu. Nothing more. But as the miseries escalated, Terry found himself actually wondering about death. Bloody hell … there was no other escape from it all. Biebe had reported there was nothing to go back to through the Portal … and that small bit of intelligence played a huge part in his emotional agony.

He had no life before he came to this place. No family. Only memories of things that never happened. He was nothing more than a lit form on a screen performing lines and meeting his mark. What was he? If he wasn’t suffering with every miserable symptom known to man, he’d swear he wasn’t even human.

He groaned and tossed the blanket aside, suddenly too overheated … only to grapple for it a moment later, shaking and chilled. He tried to think but not think, to concentrate on the fact that he hadn’t squeezed the fucking ball in his injured hand once all day. Would his progress fall behind?

Progress? What progress? He had submitted himself to the punishment Charlie doled out six days a week for six fucking weeks, and after the first two, he was positive nothing had improved further. But Charlie continued to work with him … and Terry endured, believing that the bloke would have given up by now if there was no hope. Truth be told, Terry could do nothing more than hold a fork and squeeze a rubber ball proficiently.

He’d long ago stopped the left handed weapons training. What was the point? The General was clear and Terry already knew … he couldn’t do the job without both hands.

But, there was another option, wasn’t there then? Nothing and no one could stop him from reactivating himself … from taking the next field mission … finding … finding … finding what? His demise? What sense would that make? How would he have won?

Won? He always had to win. The fever continued to climb and Terry’s mind meandered through strange and poignant things. He had to win, he just had to. Even a playful little game of one-up-manship with Riley. For years that went on. She wanted to see him smile … he wanted to win. What the fuck was wrong with him? But this? This he had to win. Somehow he had to win.

“Why did this happen, Terrence Ira Thorne?”

The voice was so familiar a lump rose in his throat. He opened his aching eyes and blinked several times. His mother stood at his side, her hands on hips, her brilliant blue eyes glittering in the afternoon light and her wavy chestnut hair shimmering like a halo. She wasn’t there. He knew she wasn’t there. Understood that the fever was reaching for its peak and he was hallucinating. But she was there. She huffed and tapped her foot.

Terry wanted to grin. He knew this conversation. Knew it well. When he was twelve, he sprained an ankle playing footie at school. As soon as he was permitted out with his mates again, he did exactly what he was told not to do … he played footie … and cracked the ankle. It was a horrible school holiday, one where he lay on the sofa all day and in bed all night, a cast on his leg and schoolbooks on his knees. His mother figured it was good time for advancing in his studies. He smiled at the memory, refusing to accept that it couldn’t have happened. After all, there she stood, Margaret Thorne in all her glory.

“Why did this happen?” she repeated, this time her voice was gentle as she pointed to his damaged hand.

No. No. This was wrong. This was so fuckin’ wrong. He rubbed his eyes, sweat dripped from his brow. He refocused, clearly expecting the apparition of Doctor General Murphy to be standing there instead of his mother. But it was still her.

She broke his heart, kneeling at his side, tenderly fingering his numb hand. “Why did this happen, Terry? How did you ask for this? And … what are you going to do about it?”

He fought tears, refused to speak. He was doing everything he fucking could do about it. Everything!

“Not everything, dear.”

He squeezed his eyes tight.

“This is your life, Terry. It’ll be what you make it. Make it something good,” his mother’s voice whispered.

“Take what you can from the recovery and make it work for you,” came Charlie’s voice.

“You wear that dehumanizing armor all the time, Terry,” it was Riley’s voice, soft and tearful. “Underneath it is a sweetness, a fullness. A strength you’ll never have wearing it.”

“Time to drop the fucking armor, Thorne,” grunted General Murphy.

Terry struggled to sit up. His head was spinning and gut was rolling with nausea. He stumbled for the loo.

“This is your life, make it something good,” called the retreating voice of Margaret Thorne.

“Make it as special as you are,” shouted Riley.

“Drop the armor, Thorne,” grumbled the General and Terry barely made it to the toilet.

He dropped to his knees, surges of vomit and bile charging from his stomach. He gaped and gagged. “Enough!” he groaned but the voices continued, overlapping, sounding like a storm washing wave upon wave against the rocks, splintering into a thousand splashes of pain. “Enough!” he shouted and again his stomach rebelled.

Slowly the nausea subsided, his stomach empty and the fever rising, making him weaker, making his muscles ache and tremble … the voices melted away like a dark night at dawn. He washed off his face and turned to his bed. Sliding beneath cool sheets he sighed and a tear slid from the corner of his eye. Perhaps he had a lot to mourn? The loss of the work he loved … of his confidence that those he loved would always be safe in his care … the full use of his hand.

But, there were things he could do. He could play with a nipper, he could make love, he could breathe and he could live and … he could … maybe … drop the armor. But Terry Thorne was terrified of what might be beneath the armor. What was he hiding there? Would exposing it make him unworthy? Weak? Ineffective?

He rolled to his side and gave himself to a demanding sleep. Dreams picked up where the hallucinations left off. Memories of protecting his oldest sister from an abusive boyfriend … memories of the grateful look on a captive’s face … memories of the Inn and those he loved. He could go there, rest, find his way from Vermont out of his emotional hell, couldn’t he? Or would that be avoiding the work?

He was suddenly awakened by the shrill ringing of his phone. He groaned, scrambled and answered. “Yeah, Thorne.”

“Yeah, and where the hell are you?”

“Charlie, ah … mate. Sorry. I … uh …” his mind scrambled for an acceptable excuse, something that justified his forgetting therapy that day.

“Tell the truth,” his mother’s voice whispered and he grinned.

“Got the bloody fuckin’ flu, mate. Sick as a dog. Sorry. Forgot to call.”

Charlie was silent a moment.

“Sorry,” Terry repeated.

“No. No problem. I was just kinda surprised you’d admit getting sick like the rest of us lowly humans, that’s all,” Charlie chuckled.

“I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“No. Take a few days. Come on Monday.”

No sooner had his head lowered to the pillow and he was again dreaming at a rapid pace. He stood in darkness, his head swiveling from side to side as he spun around, trying to see the speakers who jabbed at him with words that felt like left hooks.

“It’s your life. Make it what you want. Make it good,” sobbed his mother.

“Push, Terry! Push like you’re saving your life!” yelled Charlie.

“Drop the damn armor, Thorne!” grunted the General.

“You can do anything, you can do this,” came the collective voices of his many brothers in the family.

“Under your tongue, Thorne. Come on, cooperate,” hissed the General’s voice.

“It’s your life. Make it what you want,” whispered his mother.

“Drop the dehumanizing armor,” Riley cried. “It doesn’t serve you.”

“Your life, Terry,” came a voice he didn’t know, had never heard before. It sang with the melody of a Spanish accent, sweet and light. “Make it good,” she said softly.

“Drop the armor,” said the General just as the shivering chill of cool dampness soaked his heated brow.

“You can do this, Terry. You can do anything,” Riley sniffled. “Drop the damn armor.”

“Drop the veil, Terry,” the melodic accented voice whispered and before Terry’s eyes, he saw a brilliantly colored lace veil. It dropped slowly, curling and coiling in an unfelt breeze and pooled at his feet. A coolness washed over him and light fought to enter his closed eyes.

And he suddenly knew. He could do this. He could make his life as good or as hellish as he wanted. He chose peace. “I can do this,” he whispered inside his head. “I can.”

“Yay,” laughed Riley, his Gamer, his friend. “I win!”

“Damn,” he grunted a chuckle through a dry throat.

“Why damn?”

It was the General’s voice and it had substance. Terry squinted his eyes, opening them slowly. The bedside lamp was bright, the windows dark. How long was he asleep? He blinked. General Murphy sat in a chair at his side. He pulled a damp cloth from Terry’s brow and repeated, “Why damn?”

“General?” Terry reached a hand and pressed fingertips against the old man’s chest. He was real. “What’re ya doin’ here?”

“Charlie called, said you were sick. Dino gave me the key.” He leaned back in the chair, a tired, grey man withered with age … not the frightful figure who had taken Terry through the precarious pathways of hell. Just an old man.

“Your fever hit a hundred and four before it broke, Terry. I think you’re over the worst of it. The wife sent chicken soup, if you think you can keep it down.” The man grinned.

“What are ya doin’ here?”